EADS' new defence and security systems division will be fully operational from the beginning of next month, chief executive Thomas Enders said yesterday, revealing at the show the European defence conglomerate's plans for two key advanced-technology activities - UCAVs and network-centric warfare.
He welcomed Monday's decision by the French defence ministry to contract Dassault to build a UCAV technology demonstrator. "We welcome the news that a leading European government is putting money into this - it shows that UCAVs are real."
He also revealed that EADS was working on a demonstrator of its own and declared: "We hope that these initiatives will be followed by more in Europe."
Pillars
One of the pillars of the new EADS division is its Systems Design Centre, described by Enders as "our centre of excellence for systems design".
At the heart of the centre is an activity that EADS calls Advanced Defence Concepts and Simulation, or NETCOS. "This is something amazing and new," Enders said. "It's not for show - we're going to draw our customers into this to create a European network-centric warfare capability."
Europe was well on the way to having plenty of war fighting platforms, Enders said. "What is needed is a way of linking and networking them. The creation of NETCOS represents an important step towards being able to offer this capability to customers in the future."
Source: Flight Daily News